necessary."

"Then my share of the notes is equally important to them?"

"No doubt; but I couldn't speak for you until I had consulted you."

"What do they offer?"

"Hang it! my dear fellow, the same that I accepted. Knowing better
than you the danger of their competition I sold out to them on very bad
terms."

"Well, but what are they, those terms?"

"I gave up my shares for fifteen thousand francs."

"Come, come!" said Dutocq, shrugging his shoulders, "what you are after
is to recover a loss (if you made it) by a commission on my share--and
perhaps, after all, the whole thing is only a plot between you and la
Peyrade--"

"At any rate, my good friend, you don't mince your words; an infamous
thought comes into your head and you state it with charming frankness.
Luckily you shall presently hear me make the proposal to Theodose,
and you are clever enough to know by his manner if there has been any
connivance between us."

"So be it!" said Dutocq. "I withdraw the insinuation; but I must say
your employers are pirates; I call their proposal throttling people. I
have not, like you, something to fall back upon."

"Well, you poor fellow, this is how I reasoned: I said to myself, That
good Dutocq is terribly pressed for the last payment on his practice;
this will give him enough to pay it off at one stroke; events
have proved that there are great uncertainties about our
Theodose-and-Thuillier scheme; here's money down, live money, and
therefore it won't be so bad a bargain after all."

"It is a loss of two-fifths!"

"Come," said Cerizet, "you were talking just now of commissions. I see
a means of getting one for you if you'll engage to batter down this
Colleville marriage. If you will cry it down as you have lately cried it
up I shouldn't despair of getting you a round twenty thousand out of the
affair."

"Then you think that this new proposal will not be agreeable to la
Peyrade,--that he'll reject it? Is it some heiress on whom he has
already taken a mortgage?"

"All that I can tell you is that these people expect some difficulty in
bringing the matter to a conclusion."

"Well, I don't desire better than to follow your lead and do what is
disagreeable to la Peyrade; but five thousand francs--think of it!--it
is too much to lose."

At this moment the door opened, and a waiter ushered in the expected
guest.

"You can serve dinner," said Cerizet to the waiter; "we are all here."

It was plain that Theodos